


The Dragon's Claw

by Katalyna_Rose



Series: Vhenan and Associated Stories (Lyna Lavellan) [27]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Break Up, Solavellan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 09:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10919415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katalyna_Rose/pseuds/Katalyna_Rose
Summary: In the heat of battle, with adrenaline coursing through their veins and a common goal, Solas and Lyna can forget, for a moment, how hurt they both are and share a smile. Yet that very distraction can lead to trouble when Lyna fails to notice that the dragon has closed in on her.





	The Dragon's Claw

**Author's Note:**

> This is essentially a prequel to For a Smile, in which Dorian goes to great lengths to cheer Lyna up. http://archiveofourown.org/works/9179815

There were a total of three high dragons in Emprise du Lion. Solas stood beside Lyna on the newly repaired bridge as they listened to the scout’s report. He watched her expression turn agonized and fearful, watched her turn her gaze northward, toward the recovering village of Sahrnia. He could almost hear her thoughts as she gazed at the horizon. Would they recover from the red Templars only to be killed by dragons? Dragons were territorial by nature, after all, and if the three that were living across that bridge began to fight, it was the people in the region who would lose. He watched as her expression hardened into determination.

“We’ll take care of it,” she promised, and the scout brightened, relieved. She was almost a goddess to these people; if she said she would take care of it, they believed her without question. But Solas worried. They’d taken on a few dragons before, one in the Hinterlands that had laid waste to miles of land and another in the Western Approach that they were trying to study and were attacked. But he’d seen one of the dragons flying overhead, bringing its prey back to its nest. That dragon was definitely larger than the ones they’d faced before, and he wondered about their chances for success against three of them.

Once two of them were dead, Solas decided that he’d had little reason to fear. He cast his spells with confidence, renewing the barriers over the others every so often. Sera was across the battlefield, whooping with glee as she coordinated her attacks with Lyna, the two of them bounding across rocks and confusing the dragon. Iron Bull laughed and shouted something in Qunlat that was lost in the dragon’s roar, his axe momentarily stuck deep in the dragon’s leg. Cole was flitting around its feet, keeping it busy and opening the way for Bull’s attacks. The beast was furious, spitting lightning and fire at them all, but it was losing.

Lyna passed in front of him, her bowstring twanging moments before the monster roared in pain and clawed frantically at its face. In the adrenaline rush of battle she forgot her anger and her pain over the way he’d left her and she sent him a grin, laughing breathlessly. He was awestruck by the expression, by her, and kept casting mindlessly, his attention diverted from the battle to the woman he loved. She grinned at him again as she shot an arrow that exploded across the dragon’s scales. She winked at the exact moment her arrow struck, and Solas couldn’t help but chuckle.

It was only by chance that he saw the dragon switch its focus from Iron Bull to Lyna. He caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, saw the beast rounding on her, watched it lift a giant, talon-filled leg and reach for her. It all happened before he could blink, and he acted without thought. He threw himself into motion, a hand stretched out to cast a barrier over her. He threw himself in front of her a split second before the dragon struck.

His mind seemed distanced from his body as he flew briefly. He didn’t feel any pain, only a warm trickle of wet on his chest. Then he landed, and all the pain suddenly flared to life. He gasped and choked, clutching at his shredded armor and the shredded skin beneath. Distantly, he heard Lyna screaming.

“ _Solas!_ Damn it! Sera, cover me!”

“On it!”

A moment later light footsteps crunched on the ground beside him and panting breaths filled his ears. Her hand lifted his head and the cool glass rim of a potion met his lips. Struggling to focus his gaze on her, desperate to see that she was unharmed, he accepted the bitter liquid within and felt the elfroot begin to dull his pain almost immediately.

“Damn you, Solas, why would you do that?” she asked even though she knew he couldn’t answer, her voice sounding thick and choked with emotion. “The barrier would have been enough!”

He gasped as he finished the potion and she tucked away the empty bottle. “It wouldn’t have been enough,” he told her, then coughed and felt liquid rattling in his lungs. “I had a barrier, too. The dragon tore through it.”

She huffed in indignation. “What do you even care? If one us had to take the blow, why not just let me take it?”

The sound of the dragon’s death throes, its final resistance to death, and Iron Bull’s triumphant shout drowned out whatever he might have said. She looked over her shoulder at the dead dragon, her shoulders slumping in relief.

“Cole! Go back to camp and fetch a healer!” she yelled. The spirit sheathed his blades and vanished without a word. She turned back to him, a new potion in her hand that clearly wasn’t the elfroot he was used to. “Here, Solas. This will let you rest and slow the bleeding until we can get you to a proper healer,” she said, touching the rim of the potion to his lips. It took all his strength to push it away with one hand.

“Couldn’t let you get hurt,” he told her weakly, and coughed again. “Not when I could prevent it.” He saw her clench her jaw and blink quickly before she forced the potion into his mouth and he had to spit it out or swallow it. Spitting seemed like too much effort, agony wracking his chest and limbs and blood loss making him sluggish, so he allowed her to put him to sleep, grateful only that she was safe.


End file.
